St. John's Law Review
Volume 32
Issue 1 Volume 32, December 1957, Number 1
Article 3
May 2013
Labor's View of Proposed Changes in the Present
National Labor Relations Act
George Meany
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32: Iss. 1, Article 3.
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LABOR'S VIEW OF PROPOSED CHANGES IN THE
PRESENT NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS ACT
GEORGE MEANY t
HAVE been asked to discuss today what sort of changes I
would like to see made in the Taft-Hartley Act,1 and what
sort of changes I would oppose Labor relations legislation
is, whether fortunately or not, a timely topic and I appreciate this opportunity to talk to you about it.
First, I would like to place this issue of Taft-Hartley
revision in what I conceive to be its proper historical context.
To begin with, let us consider how the Taft-Hartley Act came
to be passed.. This Act, adopted in 1947, was, as we all know,
a drastic revision, in an anti-union direction, of the Wagner
Act,2 which had been passed twelve years earlier in 1935. Its
enactment was the result, I think, of two factors: first, a
long range propaganda campaign skillfully and.persistently
conducted by reactionary employers; and second, certain developments, particularly the post-war wave of strikes in 1946,
which engendered -widespread public hostility to unions. It
was the coincidence of these two elements which, in my view,
eventually led to the enactment of the Taft-Hartley Act.
As respects the propaganda campaign, such organizations as the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)
opposed the Wagner Act when it was passed in 1935, and
sought its emasculation from that day onward. At first, the
NAM and other employer associations advised their members
that the Act was unconstitutional and to ignore it. When,
to the surprise and chagrin of the Wall Street lawyers, the
t President, American
Federation of
Labor - Congress
of Industrial
Organizations.
1
Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, 61 STAT. 136, 29 U.S.C. §§ 142-44,
151-67, 171-82, 185-89, 191-97 (1952).
2National Labor Relations Act, 49 STAT. 449 (1935).
19571
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS ACT
15
Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Act in
1937, 3 the NAM and its sister organizations inaugurated a
long range program to influence public opinion against the
Wagner Act.
This propaganda campaign, using radio, cartoons, advertising and leaflets, and taking full advantage of the news and
editorial columns of the employer oriented press, reached
every community of the nation. At the same time, the employer organizations carried on an active campaign in Congress to revise the Wagner Act in line with their views.
Indeed, most of the anti-union proposals which ultimately
found their way into the Taft-Hartley Act had been before
the Congress for eight or ten years before they were finally
enacted.
This propaganda campaign against the Wagner Act, and
really against the unions of the country, was not, however,
initially successful. It did not meet with success until 1947,
after what the public regarded as union excesses had created
an atmosphere hostile to unions.
Let us look a little at what it was that the unions did in
the years before 1947 which engendered the violent reaction
against them which led to the Taft-Hartley Act. To begin
with, during World War II most unions conscientiously and
scrupulously observed the no-strike pledge which they voluntarily gave the government. One union, however, conspicuously did not observe the no-strike pledge, and its strikes in
an industry vital to war production aroused widespread
public resentment.
During the war period, collective bargaining agreements
were regulated by the War Labor Board.4 Even negotiated
wage increases required the Board's approval. Thus, for several years there were no real tests of economic strength between unions and employers in most industries. The result
was that by 1946 there was a backlog of potential labor disputes ready to break out when the no-strike pledge expired
3NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1 (1937). See also
NLRB v. Fruehauf Trailer Co., 301 U.S. 49 (1937); NLRB v. FriedmanHarry Marks Clothing Co., 301 U.S. 59 (1937); Associated Press v. NLRB,
301 U.S. 103 (1937); Washington, Va. & Md. Coach Co. v. NLRB, 301 U.S.
142 (1937).
4 Exec. Order No. 9017, 7 FED. REG. 237 (1942).
ST. JOHN'S LAW REVIEW
[ VOL.
32
and government controls were removed. The workers were,
not unnatural]y, determined in 1946 to preserve at least
their war-time levels of take home pay, while many employers anticipated a recession due to decreased government
spending.
For these reasons, 1946 saw a wave of economic strife.
This situation gave the forces typified by the NAM their
chance. The public paid little attention to the fact that one
reason why strikes were so numerous in 1946 was that the
unions involved had refrained from striking during the war.
A majority of the press, always hostile to unions, took the
opportunity to spread anti-union sentiment. The NAM's
long propaganda campaign reached fruition when in 1947
the Congress enacted the Taft-Hartley Act over President
Truman's veto.
From the circumstances which at least provided the
occasion for its enactment, one would have expected the
Taft-Hartley Act to concern itself with the resolution of
labor disputes involving wages, hours and working conditions. For Labor Department figures show that 83.9 per cent
of the total man hours lost by strikes in 1946 was due to
disputes involving these issues. Another 13.4 per cent involved issues both of union organization and of wages and
hours. Only 1.8 per cent was due solely to issues of union
organization, and only 0.9 per cent was due to inter-union
or intra-union problems. Thus, one might have expected the
Taft-Hartley Act would re-enact something like the expired
War Labor Disputes Act, 5 or re-institute wartime government
controls over disputes involving wages, hours and working
conditions.
This is not what happened, however. The Taft-Hartley
Act is simply an amalgamation of various anti-union proposals which had been put forward in Congress over the
years, and most of these anti-union provisions are quite unrelated to the causes of the 1946 strike wave. The TaftHartley Act provides, for example, that if the Labor Board
conducts an election during a strike, the strikebreakers may
557 STxT. 163 (1943).
1957]
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS ACT
17
vote but the strikers may not.6 Incidentally, President
Eisenhower denounced this particular provision as union
busting in his speech before the AFL convention in 1952.
My point, however, is that this Taft-Hartley provision and
others like it had no relation to the 1946 strikes which had
made unions unpopular. Similarly, the restrictions placed
by the Taft-Hartley Act on union security agreements, 7 and
its invitation in Section 14(b) to the states to enact "rightto-work" laws,8 had no rational relation to the 1946 strike
wave.
Reactionary employers and their allies in Congress
simply took advantage in 1947 of anti-union public sentiment
to secure the enactment of miscellaneous anti-union measures
which they had been pushing for many years. That these
measures were largely irrelevant to the 1946 situation made
no difference. The 1946 strikes provided the occasion for
anti-labor legislation, but did not shape its content.
Now, we are again in the midst of a period when unions
are receiving abundant adverse publicity. This time it is
occasioned not by strikes, of which there have been very few
recently, but by the grossly improper activities of officials
of a number of unions, disclosed at hearings of the Senate
Anti-Racketeering Committee. These activities have included
improper use of union funds, sometimes amounting to outright embezzlement, improper relations with employers and
various kinds of racketeering.
6"Employees on strike who are not entitled to reinstatement shall not be
eligible to vote." Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, § 9(c) (3), 61 STA&T.
144, 29 U.S.C. § 159(c) (3) (1952). "Any employee who engages in a strike
within the sixty-day period specified in this subsection shall lose his status as
an employee of the employer engaged in the particular labor dispute . . . but
such loss of status for such employee shall terminate if and when he is reemployed by such employer. Id. at 144, 29 U.S.C. § 159(d) (4).
7 Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, § 8(a) (3), 61 STAT. 140, 29 U.S.C.
§ 159(a) (3) (1952).
"It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer
by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term
or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any
...
labor8 organization . . . " Ibid.
Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, § 14(b), 61 STAT. 151 (1947),
29 U.S.C. § 164(b) (1952). "Nothing in the Act shall be construed as authorizing the execution or application of agreements requiring membership in
a labor organization as a condition of employment in any State or Territory
in which such execution or application is prohibited by State or Territorial
law." Ibid.
ST. JOHN'S LAW REVIEW
[ VOL. 32
Once more, therefore, as in 1946, the unions of this
country are confronted by widespread adverse publicity, and
the threat of hostile legislative action in consequence. I think
there is rather more justification for public resentment this
time than there was in 1946. Although crooks and racketeers
are not the problem exclusively of unions, we feel shamed by
the presence in our movement of even a few of these kinds of
individuals and we will do everything possible within the
framework of our constitution to eliminate them.
To return, however, to the point I was making, not only
are unions once more facing a period of adverse publicity, as
in 1946, but there are indications that once more the reactionary employer lobby, typified by the NAM and its allies
in Congress, is seeking to exploit the opportunity to put on
the books various anti-union schemes not all related to the
abuses disclosed by the McClellan Committee. In a recent
speech before the Senate, Senator Mundt, for example, declared that the McClellan Committee hearings indicated a
need for legislation to protect individual workers against the
use of assessments and dues money for political purposes in
federal elections and to correct what he called the failure of
the Taft-Hartley Act to deal adequately with secondary
boycotts.
I hardly need tell you that these proposals have little
relevance to the McClellan Committee hearings, or that the
NAM was advocating these proposals years before the
McClellan Committee was heard of.
As far as secondary boycotts are concerned, that is of
course a very complicated subject; and the controversy over
whether the Taft-Hartley Act provisions should be made
more rigid or bd liberalized has been going on for some years.
I think myself that they should be liberalized; and that it is
outrageous, for example, to require union workers in one
plant to handle struck work from another plant. The point,
however, is that the McClellan Committee hearings have
touched only incidentally, and then not impartially, on the
secondary boycott issue, and that it would appear Senator
Mundt is simply seeking to use those hearings the way the
1946 strikes were used to promote the Taft-Hartley Act.
1957 ]
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS ACT
I favor, and have long favored, legislation to make the
Taft-Hartley Act fair to unions, management and the public
alike, and to eliminate the unfair, union busting provisions
which were inserted in 1947. Beyond that, I would support
sound legislation to meet existing evils that cannot otherwise be dealt with adequately; provided such legislation is
properly tailored to meet these evils and is not designed to
frustrate the legitimate activities and objectives of the trade
union movement.
At the last session of Congress, the AFL-CIO strongly
supported legislation to require full disclosure with respect
to the administration of welfare funds, whether those funds
are administered by unions alone or by unions and employers
jointly, or by employers alone. This legislation failed of
enactment solely because some employers declared themselves
unwilling to reveal what they are now doing with the welfare
funds they administer.
On the other hand, I will oppose every measure which
seeks to weaken or hamstring or destroy honestly led, legitimate unions. To successfully combat racketeers, and for
that matter unscrupulous employers, unions need to be
stronger-not weaker.
It is one thing to eliminate from positions of authority
and control traitors to true trade unionism and to make it
difficult for would-be traitors to carry on their work of
despoliation. It is another thing to seek to destroy the trade
union movement itself. Our eye is not so dimmed and our
hearing is not so impaired that we cannot tell the hands of
Esau or recognize the voice of Jacob. We will not be tricked
into giving our blessing to any attempt to render impotent
the strength of the labor movement under the false representation that labor must be weakened in order to deal with
the few unfaithful within its ranks.
The American trade union movement is made up of
millions of men and women who see in it the hope of attaining, in an industrial society, the human dignity their Creator
intended they should have. It is a living, vibrant, forceful
movement that springs from the heart and the soul of those
who toil and although its form may change it will never
perish so long as it is true to the-purposes of its birth-for
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ST. JOHN'S LAW REVIEW
[ VOL. 32
the source of its strength is man himself and his never-ending
quest for greater fulfillment in life.
Yes, we in the labor movement have our few traitors to
its cause and we welcome honest and sincere help in removing
men of that ilk, but it might well be repeated here and now
that we intend to nurture the continued growth and strength
of the labor movement itself and will not sit idly by while
those who would impedk it go about their unholy and infamous task.
I rely on the good sense of the American people to insure
that the present situation not be made the pretext for legislation designed to weaken or destroy the American labor
movement.